Earth Star (31 page)

‘It doesn’t matter what I wear underneath. No one will be able to tell.’

‘I’ll know what’s underneath.’ Fian grinned. ‘I can distract myself from the awful music by thinking how I’ll undress you and …’

‘I’m shocked. Deltans should be content with just holding hands.’

‘I’m a very bad Deltan.’ Fian proved this by watching me get changed before speaking again. ‘Playdon said something interesting earlier. You didn’t have a problem after being injured rescuing Solar 5, but you did this time. Any idea why?’

I led the way out into the main room. It was deserted now. The band must have gone to set up their equipment for the gig.

‘I was in a lot of pain both times,’ I said, ‘but the situation was different. This time, it was my suit hurting me, and I have to wear a suit every time I step on a dig site. Last time, the solar super storm induced an electrical current in old wiring and that interacted with the shields of Solar 5. Solar super storms only happen about once in five hundred years, so I’ll never be in that situation again.’

Fian nodded. ‘This must be the most eventful year in Earth’s history. A solar super storm, a crashing spaceship, and now aliens.’

I stopped. ‘Chaos take it!’

‘Jarra?’

I ignored him. I had to focus on my glimmer of an idea before it escaped. The solar super storm and the crashing spaceship happening at the same time wasn’t a coincidence, because one caused the other. What if the alien sphere arriving wasn’t a coincidence either? Stasis boxes somehow came into this too. People headed to other worlds in Exodus century, leaving farewell messages in stasis boxes. Eventually the power ran out, stasis fields failed, and …

I ran back into our room and groped in my bag, my fingers seeking the curved shape of my Military lookup. I’d just been sorting through my clothes, so of course it was right at the bottom. I found it at last, turned it on, and madly entered codes. Major Tar Cameron answered my call.

‘Command Support,’ she said.

I saw her expression of polite efficiency take on a frosty edge as her eyes flickered downwards. She could obviously see the top I was wearing, and she didn’t approve of me calling when I wasn’t in uniform. Didn’t the idiot woman realize I was with a whole crowd of civilians and had to hide the fact I was in the Military?

‘I need to speak to the Colonel urgently.’

Major Tar Cameron gave me the fake smile of someone who plans to be as unhelpful as possible. ‘I’m afraid the Colonel is …’

The image on my lookup suddenly changed to show Commander Leveque. ‘Nia is at Echo base with the Attack team, and the Colonel’s asleep, so I’m in command here, Jarra. Should I wake Colonel Torrek?’

Oh chaos, the Colonel was asleep. I hesitated. Fian was silently watching me with a panicky look on his face. Maybe I should have explained to him first, and spent a while thinking things over. My idea could be totally wrong, but …

‘Wake the Colonel,’ I said. ‘I’d better explain to both of you.’

There was a delay of several minutes before Colonel Torrek appeared, neatly dressed in uniform but looking rather bleary eyed. ‘Go ahead, Jarra.’

‘Sir, the alien sphere appeared only weeks after a solar super storm. My theory is that was no coincidence. Suppose the aliens came to Earth a very long time ago. Planet First has found two neo-intelligent races and put their planets under quarantine to allow them to continue their natural development. The aliens did something similar, leaving the sphere hidden somewhere in Sol system, and a device on Earth that we could use to communicate with it when we reached an appropriate level of technology.’

I paused. No one was saying a word. Were they thinking me a complete nardle? ‘We never found the device, the power cells eventually died, but then we had a solar super storm. It induced electrical currents in wiring and equipment on Earth’s surface, and gave the alien device a freak moment of power which sent a message to the sphere. That responded by heading to Earth, and now it’s up in orbit waiting for another message. It won’t get one because the solar super storm is over.’

Colonel Torrek spoke at last. ‘So the sphere is waiting for us to communicate, but not with random messages, with the specific one from an alien device that we never found. Where would that device be, Jarra?’

He wasn’t yelling at me for waking him up. He was taking this seriously. ‘The sphere is in geostationary orbit, sir, holding position over Earth Africa. Logically, the first place to look would be directly beneath it.’

‘We checked there already,’ said Colonel Torrek, ‘but not for this reason. We were looking for signs of an attack, but everything appeared perfectly normal and the sphere’s orbit was so far out from Earth that …’

‘The device would be underground,’ said Leveque. ‘Hidden and protected from damage. There would probably be a signal to attract our attention, but the power has run out. If it was buried thousands of years ago, any surface indications would be long gone.’

He paused. ‘When the portals are back, I’d recommend investigating this, sir.’

‘It’s the best idea we have at the moment,’ said Colonel Torrek. ‘How would we do this, Jarra? Military excavation methods involve blasting techniques, and we don’t want to damage anything.’

‘Archaeologists often blow things up when they’re working in the old cities abandoned in Exodus century, but with older, rarer remains, they do very delicate excavations. I’ve done very little of that, they don’t let school kids play around with irreplaceable ancient relics, but there are plenty of experts on the dig teams.’

‘We’ll want to keep this very quiet,’ said Colonel Torrek. ‘Your lecturer is Stasis Q, so he’s already taken the Security Oath and appreciates the need for secrecy in some areas. It would be simplest to call in people like him to help you with your excavation. If we get the sphere talking to us, it changes everything, but if we find nothing at all … ’

‘My excavation?’ I was grazzed.

‘They’ll expect the Military to be in charge,’ said Colonel Torrek. ‘This is your idea, and only you and Fian have the appropriate knowledge. The Military Academy sometimes sends cadets to the amateur dig sites for a week of practical experience working in impact suits and using lifting equipment, but that wouldn’t qualify anyone to lead this.’

‘Yes, sir, but I’m not qualified either. I’d be giving orders to experts who know far more than I do.’

Colonel Torrek laughed. ‘I do that all the time, Jarra. Do you think I have the faintest idea how Mason comes up with the numbers he tells me, or could match Nia’s scores in a flight simulator? The answer is no, but I don’t need to do their job, I need to do mine.’

He paused. ‘You know what needs doing, Jarra. You get the real experts to do it for you. If they hit a problem, or give you conflicting opinions, you listen and assess their reliability. You then decide whether to do something, to do nothing, to call in extra specialists, or refer the decision further up your chain of command. Simple.’

I was sure it wasn’t that easy, but I comforted myself with the thought that I’d only have to play the part for a few hours in front of some archaeologists, and I could depend on Lecturer Playdon to help me. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘We’ve got plenty of time before Earth is out of portal lockdown. We’ll send you a list of possible personnel and the data we’ve got on your excavation site before then. You can brief your lecturer now if you wish.’

‘Thank you, sir. He’s about to play drums in a music group, so I think I’ll wait until after that.’

Colonel Torrek smiled. ‘I’d heard there were huge parties going on all over Ark. We may have to let your recruits sober up before you start your excavation.’

‘Possibly, sir. Things are fairly quiet and well-behaved here, but I don’t know what’s going on at the other dig site evacuation areas.’

The call ended, and Fian looked at me thoughtfully for a moment before speaking. ‘Jarra, you’re going to be in charge of this excavation.’

‘Apparently, yes. I’ll need you to help me of course.’

‘It’s just …’

‘Yes?’

‘Surely everyone will expect you to wear an impact suit.’

I stared at him. ‘Oh chaos!’

As we headed down to the main hall, I did some urgent thinking. ‘We have two options. First option, you lead the excavation.’

‘Me? Oh no!’ Fian shook his head. ‘Me Captain, you Major.’

‘You know as much about excavations as I do.’

‘I don’t know nearly as much about the Military.’

‘I scanned a lot of texts, watched a lot of vids, that’s all. I don’t really know what I’m doing.’

‘If you don’t know what you’re doing, then you’ve been giving a chaos good impersonation of it, Jarra.’

He had that stubborn look on his face. I sighed and gave in. ‘Second option, I call the Colonel back and tell him I’ve talked him into following up my theory, but totally forgotten I couldn’t wear an impact suit.’

‘How about a third option?’ said Fian. ‘You give instructions from inside a dome. You can watch everything by using vid bees. If something needs a closer inspection, I can go and take a look.’

‘People will think it really peculiar.’

‘So explain it to them,’ said Fian. ‘Remember what Playdon said earlier. It isn’t unusual to have a problem after a serious accident.’

‘It would be horribly embarrassing, but …’ I sighed again. ‘One way or another, I’m going to look a complete nardle. I’ll watch the band and then talk to Colonel Torrek. He’ll have to decide if he’s happy with me telling people about the problem, or if he prefers to put someone else in charge.’

‘So long as it isn’t me.’

‘He could draft Playdon.’

Fian gave a choke of laughter. ‘I don’t think Playdon wants to be Military. If he did, he could have signed up himself years ago.’

We reached the main hall, and saw the band already in position, floating in midair at the far end.

‘What? How?’ Fian stared at them.

Despite my problems, I giggled. ‘They’ve borrowed a few hover belts. Much easier than setting up a stage.’

‘Dalmora looks amaz!’

I looked gloomily at Dalmora. Her black, waist-long hair hung loose, with silver flashes of light flickering in it. The classic beauty of her delicate, dark face was subtly emphasized with makeup. She was dressed in trailing lengths of deepest red material shot through with strands of silver. She was far more than just amaz, she was totally zan, and I knew I would never, ever, look that lovely.

‘Hmmm.’

Fian frowned at me. ‘Jarra! You’re surely not jealous just because I said Dalmora is looking nice.’

‘Of course not. It’s just that when Dalmora dresses up like a vid star, I feel a bit … ordinary.’

Fian grinned. ‘Jarra, trust me, you’re far from ordinary.’

‘I meant … Oh, never mind.’

Krath and Amalie waved at us from the crowd, and we went to join them. A magnified voice echoed around the hall.

‘This is Dig Site Command. Last chance to take refuge up in the corridors everyone. We’re about to go code black, with Rono and the Replays!’

‘Hit it!’ yelled Rono.

The band went wild, and the music rolled over us. I’d heard plenty of music on vids and recordings of course, and heard people playing guitars, but nothing like this. I could almost physically feel the rhythm of the drum beats.

‘Zan!’ said Krath.

‘It’s … not that bad.’ Fian stared wide-eyed at the floating band.

I was struggling with the words. I didn’t know how much sense there was in them to start with, and archaisms sometimes didn’t translate well into Language, but the music was fun. Rono did most of the singing, but Playdon and Stephan joined in for choruses. Dalmora didn’t seem to be singing. She’d probably been too busy learning her guitar part to worry about the words.

The first song finished, and the audience applauded. There were obviously some long-term fans here, because some of the people at the front had been singing along with the incomprehensible choruses. They now started yelling requests. Rono leaned forward to listen and then turned to Playdon. ‘Shall we?’

‘Why not.’ Playdon gave his evil smile. ‘Some of my class are here. Listen closely, Asgard 6. There are a lot of twentieth-century pre-history references in this. I’ll test you later on how many you recognize.’

‘A test?’ Krath said. ‘He can’t be serious.’

Fian laughed. ‘I bet he is.’

The band started playing something about how they didn’t start a fire. I caught enough of the words Rono was hammering out to realize Playdon was right about the pre-history references, but they were coming far too fast for me to follow them. By now, the front ranks of the audience were making vague dancing motions, and by song three Krath and Fian had joined in.

Amalie watched Krath with a frown. ‘I suppose he thinks he’s dancing, but he has no sense of rhythm. Not surprising given he has no sense.’

I glanced at Krath, giggled, and turned my eyes back to the more appealing sight of Fian. ‘Are Deltans allowed to dance like that? It doesn’t look respectable to me.’

The song ended, Fian turned to me and laughed. ‘I told you, I’m a very bad Deltan, and anyway I’m just copying Rono. Come and dance too.’

I gave a theatrical sigh. ‘I’m getting corrupted by a Deltan.’

Fian took my hand, pulled me close, and whispered in my ear. ‘I’ve always wanted to corrupt a Betan.’

‘I thought you were still nervous of Betans.’

‘I was, but now I’ve got used to the idea of you being one, I think it could be quite exciting.’

The music started up again with song number four, and we danced. Krath stopped jiggling around to stare at us. ‘Amaz! Jarra can really dance.’

I laughed. ‘They teach us Earth kids to dance in Home. The idea is it wears us out without wrecking the place.’

After about an hour, the band took a break, which was followed by a set of quieter, romantic songs. My lookup picked this moment to chime and I hastily muted it. I glanced at who was calling, frowned, and disentangled myself from Fian to head to the portal end of the hall where I wouldn’t disturb anyone. Fian followed me, with an expression of frustrated disapproval.

‘Sorry, but it’s Keon,’ I said. ‘I have to answer in case …’ I broke off because two familiar figures were walking towards me.